C. has left High Dependency and is back in a normal ward. Life is quieter there, and both she and her daughter like and trust her nurse. I am beginning to worry that we don’t seem to be making much progress. When my husband and I visited a week ago, I was astonished at how well she seemed, three days after massive surgery. Now it’s been 10 days, and we seem to be at exactly the same point – she can’t walk, can scarcely eat, can’t concentrate enough to read, hasn’t even begun to come to terms with her stoma.

Both she and her daughter have been assured, separately, that she won’t be turned out of hospital until matters have substantially improved. Our niece thinks it may be just as well that she is still in hospital when the results from these famous “tests” turn up next week.

Our niece, having done it for this week, now realises another visiting roster is needed for next week. My husband and I are booked for Monday. I won’t go on pestering with telephone calls – she’ll let us know if anything significant happens.

Knitting

Steady if unimpressive progress yesterday – the scarf now measures 3 ½ feet. I’ve done 7 twists -- if I were knitting with Big Wool I would be nearly finished with the shorter version, instead of just-about-half-way.

Today, the hat! The pattern starts off with 5 rounds of purl. It’s slightly clumsy – maybe I mean, I’m slightly clumsy – and I have decided to try wrapping and turning. I did a shawl like that once, in order to make it garter stitch throughout without the agony of purling. It showed – the line of wraps along the edge where two of the border trapezoids were mitred together. But it was tolerable – and that was lace.

This would involve fewer turns, and they might well get completely lost from sight in denser yarn. I’ll try, and let you know.

Miscellany

Catdownunder, I have that book, too, “The Knitwear Revolution”, 1983. It still looks distinctly good a quarter of a century later. It’s by Suzy Menkes, and includes a couple of Sandy Black designs. It’s got Kaffe, too, two years before he published “Glorious Knitting.” A couple of years after that (I’ve just learned from an Abebooks search) Black published her own “Original Knitting”. That one seems to have passed me by. Second-hand dealers are practically giving it away, and Librarything assures me I don’t have it, so I’ve just ordered it. Doesn’t mean I’ve got shelf space for it.

The very first Vogue Knitting Book doesn’t actually mention grannies, but it does begin with the words, “We are very far from the days when hand-knitting was only used for warm but inelegant garments”. And then proceeds to a rather interesting discussion of how this evolution – their word – has come about, as spinners produced yarns suitable for the new enthusiasm for knits that looked tailored, and serious studies were made of knitting stitches.

When did Mary Thomas publish her “Knitting Book”? A quick look at Abebooks provides no info about the original date of publication, but shows someone asking £231 for the Dover reprint. Goodness gracious me.